through her untamed hair. She was desperate to get it cut but too afraid to ask anyone, for some reason. Beth, Hershel's other daughter, had nicely lent Addy one of her hair brushes as the girl didn't have one of her own. Beth was sweet, too sweet to be living in this kind of world.

"Ugh, I give up." Addy groaned, and her father scoffed from beside her.

"Maybe if ya get it cut it won't be so bad." He suggested. Addy shrugged,

"Yeah, I'll get it cut like yours." Daryl scoffed again, shaking his head at his daughter as he poked holes through the tent with an arrow.

"Hey," A new voice sighed, Andrea, "This is not that great, but, uh.." The blonde trailed off as Addy glared daggers at the back of her head.

"What, no pictures?" Daryl joked as he flipped through the book Andrea gave him.

"I'm sorry," She sighed, "I feel like shit."

"Yeah, you and me both."

"I don't expect you to forgive me," Good. "But, if there's anything I can do -"

"You were 'tryna protect the group. We're good." Andrea pressed her lips together and smiled slightly, getting up and walking out of the Dixon's tent.

"But, hey, shoot me again, you best pray I'm dead."

"Bitch." Addy mumbled when she was sure Andrea was out of earshot. Daryl his head to her,

"What was that?"

"I said she's great. Real nice of her to give you that book." Addy said sarcastically, leaning her arms on her knees.

"Look at me, Adelaide."

The girl hesitated, but eventually craned her neck to look at her father.

"I ever hear that come 'outta ya mouth again, I'll hang ya upside down from that tree and tan ya hide 'till the next day."

Addy gulped. Her father didn't make empty threats, she was the first one to know that.

"Yes, sir."

Maybe being respectful would make the punishment not as harsh? After all, Addy couldn't promise she was never going to swear again, it was just in her blood to be angry all the time.

......................................................

Addy picked at her breakfast and sighed, She wasn't hungry. She hadn't been lately and she wasn't sure why.

There was a grunt from beside her and her shoulder was nudged,

"Eat." Her dad stated simply, not taking his eyes off his own food. She rubbed her eye and sighed once again. She really wasn't in the mood.

From the corner of her eye she saw Glenn stand up and begin to pace nervously. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked to stand where the whole group could see him,

"Um, guys?" Everyone looked up at him, "So the barn's full of Walkers."

"You can not tell me you're alright with this." Shane fumed as he walked past Rick.

"No, I'm not. But we're guests here, this isn't our land."

As much as the thought of flesh-eating monsters just less than a mile away from where they slept terrified the young girl, she couldn't help but agree with Rick.

"Oh, God. This is our lives man!"

"Lower your voice!" Glenn told him, fearing the walkers barely a few feet from them would hear, if they hadn't already.

"We can't just sweep this under the rug." Andrea agreed with Shane.

"It ain't right. Not remote. We either gotta go in there, we gotta make things right, or we just gotta go. Now, we have been talking about Fort Benning for a long time -"

"We can't go!" Rick finally cut him off.

"Why, Rick? Why?"

"Because my daughters still out there." Carol said, and Addy silently agreed. If Sophia was still in the area and they just up and left Addy would feel awful.

"Ok- I think it's time that we all start to just...consider the other possibility."

"Shane, we're not leaving Sophia behind."

"I'm close to finding this girl, I found her damn doll two days ago." Daryl stepped up, pacing slightly. Shane laughed,

"You found a doll, Daryl. That's what you did, you found a doll."

"You don't know what the hell you're 'talkin about!" Daryl yelled, making Addy flinch slightly.

"Hey, look- I'm just sayin' what needs to be said here! Now, if you get a good lead, it's in the first fourty-eight hours, after that it don't matter!"

"Shane-"

"Let me tell you something else, man. If she was alive out there, saw you coming, all methed out with your buck knife and geek ears around your neck, she would run in the other direction, man!"

Daryl lunged at Shane, but Rick got in between them, yelling at them to stop.

"I'll beat your ass! You don't come at me, man! I'll beat your ass, boy!"

Glenn took Addy's shoulder and pushed her behind him as the men continued to shout.

"Get your hands off me!" Shane shouted at Lori as she pushed him away.

"Now, just let me talk to Hershel, figure some things out." Rick suggested calmly.

Shane came at him again,

"What are you gonna figure out?"

"Enough!" Lori shouted as she pushed at Shane's chest again.

"If we're gonna stay, if we're gonna clear this barn, I have to talk him into it. This is his land!"

"Hershel sees there's things in there as people, sick people. His wife, his - his, his - his stepson." Dale stepped up.

Addy respected Hershel, but how could he think flesh-eating monsters were just 'sick people'?

"You knew?" Rick sounded betrayed.

"Yesterday," Dale nodded, "I talked to Hershel."

"And you waited the night?" Shane pointed out angrily.

"I thought we could survive one more night, We did. I was waiting until this morning to say something, but Glenn wanted to be the one."

"The man is crazy, Rick! If Hershel thinks those things are alive or no!"

The walkers started banging on the wooden barn doors, making the big chain that was preventing it from opening rattle. Lori took Carl and Addy's hand and pushed them behind her, her maternal instincts kicking into high gear.

........................................................

"No, it's that one." Addy giggled as Carl placed down the wrong card in their game. Carl was thankfully better and Hershel had gave him the okay to get out of bed. Addy was just thankful her best friend was back on his feet.

"Do you know what's going on?" Their game with Patrica and Beth on the porch of the farmhouse was interrupted.

"Where is everyone?" Andrea asked Glenn as she approached him with T-Dog. Addy rolled her eyes just thinking about the woman.

"You haven't seen Rick?" Glenn asked the two.

"He went off with Hershel, we were supposed to leave a couple hours ago."

"Yeah you were, what the hell?" Daryl and Carol walked up to the three from out of nowhere.

"Rick told us he was going out." Carol said, her eyes flicking from the three in front of her to the man beside her.

"Dammit, Isn't anyone takin' this seriously? We got us a damn trail."

From the distance, Addy noticed Shane approaching with a large bag of...guns?

"Ah, here we go."

Shane looked mad. His face was pulled into a deep frown as he handed her father a gun. He hadn't been the same since Otis died, and Addy knew something was going on.

"What's all this?"

"You with me man? Time to grow up," Daryl cocked the gun from behind Shane, "You already got yours?"

"Yeah - where's Dale?"

"He's on his way."

"Thought we couldn't carry?" T-Dog voiced Addy's thoughts.

"Yeah, well, we can and we have to. Now, look, it was one thing standing around here picking daises when we thought this place was supposed to be safe. But know we know it ain't."

Addy didn't like this side of Shane. She preferred the kind, caring Shane she had met when her family had arrived at the quarry camp all that time ago.

"How about you, man," Shane turned to Glenn, "You gonna protect yours?"

Glenn looked at Maggie beside him for a moment before grabbing the gun out of the man's hand. Something was going on between those two, and Addy knew she wasn't the only one that suspected it.

"Can you shoot?" He asked Maggie.

"Can you stop? You do this - you hand out these guns, my dad will make you leave tonight." The pretty brunette told him sternly.

"We have to stay Shane." Carl walked down the porch's steps.

"What is this?" Lori asked as she walked towards the huddle of people.

"We ain't going anywhere, ok? Now look, Hershel - he'll just gotta understand, ok? He - well, he's gonna have to."

Shane ignored Lori and looked over to Carl and Addy,

"Now we gotta find Sophia, am I right? Huh?"

The man crouched in front of the two kids and pulled out a small pistol each for them,

"Now, I want you two to take this. You do whatever it takes-"

Lori had an upset expression and looked like she was about to intervene, but Daryl got there before she could, pulling Shane's shoulder away from his daughter and her best friend. Shane stood up,

"Hey, man, that ain't your call!" Daryl's words were mainly directed towards his daughter, for obvious reasons, but it also wasn't his call to give Carl a gun either.

"He's right, Rick said no guns. This is not your call, this is not your decision to make." Lori angrily said through gritted teeth as she pushed her son behind her.

"Oh, shit."

Everybody looked up to see what was going on, and what it was would never erase itself from Addy's brain.

Rick, Hershel and Jimmy were coming out of a clearing, but they weren't alone. They had a Walker each on a snare pole, all three of them reaching out hungrily to the men.

Shane rushed forward muttering something to himself, and everyone followed in tow. Carol grabbed Addy's hand and jogged forward with the others, Addy gladly accepted the gesture and ran with her.

"- are you kiddin' me? Do you see what they're holdin' onto?" Shane yelled in fury.

"I see who I'm holding onto!" Hershel shouted back, struggling with the Walker on his snare pole.

"No, man, you don't!"

"Shane, just let us do this, then we can talk!"

Addy's heart raced. Why were they doing this? She clutched Carol's shaking hand tighter and the woman gave it a slight squeeze of comfort even though she was horrified at the sight in front of her too.

"What do you wanna talk about, Rick? These things ain't sick! They're not people! They're dead! Ain't gotta feel nothing for them, because all they do? They kill! These things, right here! They're the things that killed Amy! They killed Otis! They're gonna kill all of us -"

"- Shane, shut up!"

Addy didn't want to agree with Shane, but what he was saying did make sense. Those things weren't sick and they were incredibly dangerous, Addy realised that the day she was attacked at the quarry. So, she did agree with what Shane was saying, he was just handling it the completely wrong way.

"Hey, Hershel, man, let me ask you something. Could a living, breathing person, could they walk away from this?"

Shane repeatedly fired shots into the female walkers body. Addy flinched at all of them and Carol pulled the young girl into her frail body.

"Stop it!" Shane ignored his partner,

"That's three rounds in the chest! Could someone who's alive, could they just take that? Why's it still coming?" He fired more

rounds into it's body,

"That's it's heart, it's lungs! Why is it still coming?"

Shane had a crazy look in his eye. Addy hadn't known the man for long, but she could tell he had anger problems from the start.

"Shane, enough!" Rick was outraged by his friend's behaviour, even more so that his wife and two children had to watch this insanity.

"Yeah, you're right man, that is enough." And with those words, Shane fired his gun. A bullet planted itself in the walker's brain, effectively killing it.

Everything seemed to be in slow motion, but the only thing that was still going strong was the constant pounding in Addy's ears.

"Enough risking our lives for a little girl whose gone!" Carol's eyes filled with tears as the young girl shook in her arms, "Enough living next to a barn full of things that are trying to kill us! Enough! Rick, it ain't like it was before. Now, if y'all wanna live, if you wanna survive, you gotta fight for it! I'm talking about fighting, right here, right now!"

Addys trembling breaths only increased as Shane started hitting the padlock on the barn doors. Rick was screaming at Hershel to take his snare pole, but the older man didn't seem to be registering what he was saying, almost as if he was in a trance.

"Don't do it!"

"Rick!"

"Please!"

People were yelling but Addy couldn't point her finger on who it was. She didn't care. She just wanted all this to stop.

Shane removed a plank from the barn doors and threw it next to him. He banged on the doors and backed up.

"This is not the way!"

"Please!"

Shane cocked his gun and aimed it at the barn as Carol placed her body in front of Addy and held her forearms with shaky hands. Even if her daughter was gone, her maternal instinct to protect was still very much there.

The barn doors pushed open, and what came out was the stuff from nightmares. The blood, the snarling, all of it. It was too much.

Too much, too much, too much,

Addy couldn't handle it.

Tears spilled over.

Sobs wracked her body.

Stop it.

Stop it, stop it, stop it.

The gunfire, the snarls, the cries.

Too much, too much, too much.

Addy clung onto Carol as if her life depended on it.

There was yelling, more gunfire.

Too much, too much, too much.

Then it stopped.

The gunfire, the yelling, the snarling. All of it.

It stopped as if it was never there.

Addy's eyes were red from crying.

She breathed a shaky sigh of relief.

But that wasn't even the worst of it.

More snarls sounded, this time softer and more timid ones.

Addy wiped her eyes, the tears blurring her vision.

Only for them to form again as she realised who it was.

Sophia. Her best friend Sophia.

Her purple shirt was faded and dirty, with a red bite mark on her shoulder.

Carol gasped and took a few steps forward, her vision blurry with tears. The woman sobbed and ran forward,

"Sophia!"

Addy hugged herself for comfort as she was left standing alone. Daryl caught a sobbing Carol halfway and they both fell to the floor.

Addy knew the odds of Sophia's survival were extremely low. She knew she would most likely never see her again. But the small figure of her best friend stumbling out of the barn and over the dead walkers engraved itself into the girl's mind forever.

Rick stepped forward and unholstered his revolver. Addy knew he didn't want to. The gunshot that embedded itself into Sophia's brain echoed in Addy's mind, no doubt staying there for a good long while.

Carol couldn't handle seeing her daughter in the state she was.

The woman stood up slowly, Daryl doing the same as he was still holding her. He muttered something to her, but she ignored them and pushed him away as she rushed off past Addy to mourn quietly by herself.

As soon as Carol was at the gate Addy ran forward to her father, the only person who would be able to hold her and calm her down.

Daryl didn't hesitate to catch his daughter in his arms as she spread hers out wide for him. She grabbed his vest and sobbed. He gently pulled her away from the horrific scene,

"Come on."

The girl wiped her eyes again and complied.

Sophia had died alone and scared.

And there was nothing anyone could do do about it.